Passenger service in Michigan entered a new era recently when the brand new Siemens Charger Locomotives began testing in Michigan. The 4611, prominently featuring the Siemens logos and owned by the Illinois Department of Transportation, made a test run on the Michigan Services routes.

These new locomotives are the result of a large order made by a group of states, including Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Washington and California, to provide new power for those state's intercity passenger routes.

While these States have traditionally relied on Amtrak's own power, the new locomotives will replace the aging P42s in the coming year or two, giving Amtrak much needed slack in a very tight P42 roster while providing increased reliability for the growing state-supported routes.

So on the 29th and 30th of April, trains P590 (eastbound) and P955 (westbound) operated over the Pere Marquette Route, with additional runs on the Wolverine and Blue Water slated for the following day.

We picked up the P950 at New Buffalo, in what was likely the first footage of the locomotives ever in the State of Michigan. The 4611 led three passenger cars under the ancient coaling tower, harking back to the days when steam engines hauled passengers on the line until the 1940s.

We'd then catch them again at Riverside, Pullman, Fennville and finally Grandville as they reached Grand Rapids. The next day, we headed out to New Richmond to get a very soggy westbound run as they ran over the Kalamazoo River Bridge.

It won't be long until these are a daily sight across numerous Amtrak routes. This is just the first run of hundreds of thousands these units will make in their lifetime within the State, and it's always nice to see investment in transportation infrastructure.

01 April 2017 - Columbus, WISOO Line 6027 - Last of the SOO Line Hockey Sticks!

The SOO Line remains the US arm of Canadian Giant Canadian Pacific, but quickly fading are the days of a separate corporate image, the most visible of which are its locomotives.

Generations of railroaders and railfans looked upon the distinct "Hockey Stick" livery, which adorned power ranging from GP9s to these SD60s. Today, CP continues to fold everything into their own image, with bright red and the CP image replacing the memorable "SOO" font.

Barreling westward for Minneapolis and beyond and fresh out of Chicagoland, SOO 6027 leads manifest No. 281 through Columbus, Wisconsin.

Immediately preceding it, a local blasts through with a pair of Geeps hustling a dozen mixed for points east. They'd meet the 281 just east of town.

I like your video's and don't mind your narrations (which you didn't do on these)

PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

Inside the old roundhouse in the WSOR yard in Janesville, WI, mechanical know-how keeps the railroad on the move.

Today, the shop crew gives a tour to the next generation of railroaders from Michigan Technological University's Railroad Engineering and Activities Club (REAC). First up, an overview of an SD40-2, in the shop to have its wheels cut back to the desired profile.

What are the main parts of a diesel-electric locomotive? What makes the engine so robust? Those questions and more, in this 502nd episode of the Thornapple River Rail Series.

NOTE: this film was taken and published with the permission of the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad. All individuals on the tour wore proper PPE and had authorization to be on property - the WSOR and TRRS remind all to NEVER TRESPASS on the railroad. It's dangerous, it's illegal, and it makes the job much more stressful. Don't do it!

Does railroad engineering sound like a career path for you? Check out Michigan Tech's railroad program by following the link below! www.rail.mtu.edu

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Railroads soon figured out that some clever mechanical bits would be needed if they ever wanted to have more than one track. Today, nearly all railroad turnouts, or switches, are of the point type, where a set of points are moved to create the alignment.

In the Janesville Yard on the Wisconsin and Southern, Brent Marsh gives a tour group of Michigan Tech Engineering students the details on turnouts, from how they work to what parts go into them.

NOTE: this film was taken and published with the permission of the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad. All individuals on the tour wore proper PPE and had authorization to be on property - the WSOR and TRRS remind all to NEVER TRESPASS on the railroad. It's dangerous, it's illegal, and it makes the job much more stressful. Don't do it!

Does railroad engineering sound like a career path for you? Check out Michigan Tech's railroad program by following the link below! www.rail.mtu.edu

Steel wheels on steel rails is a great way to move a lot of freight, but those wheels better be circular! From time to time, wheels must be changed out due to defects, particularity for flat spots. Usually the result of the car being dragged with the brakes still applied, the spots are cause for concern as they can do damage to track and lead to wheel failures.

For this two-bay covered hopper, a wheel impact detector, a high-tech piece of wayside defect detection, caught it leaving Chicago thumping along. So when the car arrived at the Wisconsin & Southern's Janesville yard, it was kicked to the repair track for a new set of wheels.

Watch as the carmen show off the wheel replacement process to the next generation of railroaders from Michigan Technological University's Railroad Engineering and Activities Club (REAC).

How are railcar trucks connected to the cars? What parts make up a truck? How do they swap out wheels? All of those questions and more in this 504th episode of the Thornapple River Rail Series.

NOTE: this film was taken and published with the permission of the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad. All individuals on the tour wore proper PPE and had authorization to be on property - the WSOR and TRRS remind all to NEVER TRESPASS on the railroad. It's dangerous, it's illegal, and it makes the job much more stressful. Don't do it!

Does railroad engineering sound like a career path for you? Check out Michigan Tech's railroad program by following the link below! www.rail.mtu.edu

The LS&I's storied ore dock, towering above and out into the waters of Marquette's Upper Harbor, stood largely silent from January until this day, the 25th of March, during the wintertime shutdown.

March 25th brings the unofficial beginning of a new shipping season on the Great Lakes. Like Memorial day is to summer, on the 25th the Army Corps of Engineers opens the SOO Locks, connecting Lake Superior to the lower lakes, hailing the start of the new season, including at Marquette.

The first ship of the year is the Kaye E Barker of the Interlake Steamship Company, one of the Lake's foremost transportation companies since 1913. She was the second upbound transit at the locks in the morning, and we first catch her through the lens as she's still several miles off of port.

While this video contains no trains, as viewers of this channel may be accustomed, the ore dock operation is an interesting one and directly tied to the LS&I, whose ore jennies we can see high above on the top deck.

After the KE Barker has come in and the lines have secured her to the dock, the ship's crew begins removing the hatch covers, and the LS&I dock crew begins their first loading ritual of the season: something they'll do approximately 300 times this season.

The loading process itself is rather simple. An operator lowers one of the mammoth chutes down into the hatch covers. When ready, they open the gate to spill the entire pocket into the hold of the ship. Gravity does all of the work, a key feature of these old docks.

Once the pocket is nearly empty, another crewmember jumps one more ore jennie into the pocket to spill into the waiting freighter. This because as ship hold size increased, the dock's pockets did not.

Once fully empty, the operator closes the chute hatch and raises up the chute.

For most freighters, they'll unload every other chute, which aligns with the hatch covers on the vessel, then slide the whole ship up or back one chute, to repeat the process with the other pockets. Many will even be slid farther back, to load still more ore towards the end of the dock.

All told, the Kaye E Barker will load about 26,000 tons of ore, all of it Hematite Flux from the Tilden Mine on the other end of the LS&I, bound for the blast furnaces of the AK Steel Plant in Dearborn, MI. The Kaye E Barker is 767' long and was constructed in 1951.

Very interesting video. I've seen the Barker many times while sailing on the lakes. I noticed at the end of the video, with the ship apparently loaded, the bow was only loaded to 16 feet draft. Or were they not done loading? Thanks for sharing. As an aside note, the lake levels are at their highest in many years. This allows the ships to carry a little more cargo, and load deeper in the water.

"Ask your doctor if medical advice from a TV commercial is right for you".

hoborich wrote:Very interesting video. I've seen the Barker many times while sailing on the lakes. I noticed at the end of the video, with the ship apparently loaded, the bow was only loaded to 16 feet draft. Or were they not done loading? Thanks for sharing. As an aside note, the lake levels are at their highest in many years. This allows the ships to carry a little more cargo, and load deeper in the water.

They weren't done loading. After collecting all the ore from the shore end of the dock, boats get pushed back to load the Lake end to achieve their full balance of ore.

The end of an era in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, this is Empire's Last Stand, a special presentation by the Thornapple River Rail Series!

While Michiganders thought at first that the Upper Peninsula was a wasteland, history has borne out the “UP” to be loaded with natural resources and natural beauty.

It didn’t take long for mineral extraction to begin, and the forestry industry was likewise quick to make profit of the bountiful woodlands. While both industries are decades off their zenith, the remaining operations are still the lifeblood of the economy for the upper peninsula.

A Negaunee staple since 1963, the Empire Mine has employed countless people over the years, providing good jobs with steady wages, until the plant churned out its last viceroy flux pellet for the steel mills of Indiana on August 4th, 2016. Despite many shutdowns over the years in periods of weak demand, this shutdown will be permanent.

In this edition of Pure Michigan Trains, we’ll follow some of the last iron ore trains to call at Empire, the CN iron ore jennies of U741 and U743, which ceased to operate in October 2016.

Thanks for watching! Don’t forget to share this video, like and subscribe to Thornapple River Rail Series!

PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

Grand Elk Train No. 303, with through service from Grand Rapids to Kalamazoo, has just departed GR for an evening trot down to the railroad's central yard in Kalamazoo, with four motors and 57 cars in tow.

Our first spot of them is south of town near Byron Center, where they're working a slow order in addition to an uphill climb from the Grand River Valley, along tributary Buck Creek.

Second, we're just north of the hamlet of Shelbyville, where they're again working against gravity on an uphill ascent. The online motors are giving it a good pull, with plenty of classic EMD rumble.

After a successful summit, we catch them again rolling through Martin and shortly thereafter Plainwell. From here it is all downhill to Kalamazoo, as they're now in the namesake Kalamazoo River Valley.

Upon arriving in Kalamazoo, they're got one of the more clumsy moves to complete. They start by rumbling over the Amtrak/MDOT Michigan Line, where until recently Michigan's second-to-last manned interlocking tower stood guard...just a shell now!

Just south of downtown, the conductor and who is presumably a conductor trainee mount the rear end, for the shove around the connector for Gearhart Yard, located to the east of the just-passed diamonds on the Michigan Line.

This backup move is time-consuming, and even frustrating for the people of Kalamazoo, with several major roads tied up each time the railroad works one of these shoving movements.

Jointed rail has always been a reliable way to fasten your rails together, but over time the joints, if not carefully maintained, can become loose and pump mud up through the track structure.

On the north end of Marquette Rail's Grand Rapids Subdivision, the old jointed rail dating back to the steam era still paves the way. While there's nothing wrong with jointed rail, and this track isn't terrible, it is showing its status in places as not the best maintained track ever heard of.

In this track-level shot, the southbound Turn Job pounds this joint as they roll through.

Note that this level of deviation in the track is NOT super dangerous. Vertical flexing is totally normal to begin with, and very little lateral motion is seen. It is curves where one has to worry about bad rail conditions, as the lateral forces are much more likely to spread the rails apart or roll a rail over, obviously putting the train on the ground.

With the track conditions in mind, they're rolling along at a modest pace, where originally the speed limit was all the way up around 40 miles per hour.

Note: Filmed at a public grade crossing, with the ground camera placed several minutes before the train's arrival.

PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

Rochelle is a classic Midwestern railroad town, with the Union Pacific's CNW Mainline crossing the rails of BNSF's Northern Transcon.

With a railroad park and two webcams on site, the diamonds are a hotbed of railfanning activity. But in this video, we take to the skies aboard the TRRS Drone to catch several trains as they move through town.

Filmed on 24 and 25 June 2017.

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With 14,000 tons of train - over 10,000 feet in fact - to get up the formidable Saugatuck Grade, CSX dispatched manned helpers in the form of D802 to assist in the ascent. Crews in this area are used to this procedure, as any train over 10,000 tons much be shoved or doubled up the hill.

So midway up the hill, at the 133rd Ave underpass which dates all the way back to 1908, the drone is in the air, to capture the train's twisting ascent from the Kalamazoo River Valley.